Vocabulary Mnemonics

February 26, 2024

Matt’s words

Desiccate: a state of extreme dryness; remove the moisture from

“The thirsty leech desiccated the sleeping camper by sucking all the blood out of him.”

Mnemonic: Substitute the “sic” in the middle of the word with “suck.” This de-suck-ate. You’ve sucked all the water or moisture out of something.

Audacious: a willingness to take bold risks

“The hero’s plan to storm the castle was awe inspiring and audacious.”

Mnemonic: The word begins with the ahhhh sound, so think of awe. You admire the awe-daciousness of the action being carried out.

Fervid: intensely enthusiastic or passionate

The callow youth…

“The bedridden invalid was kept up all night by a fervid fever.”

Mnemonic: This covers three related words: fervid, fervor, and fervent. The mnemonic works for all of them. These all look similar to “fever,” which is associated with being hot. Think of being hot with passion or enthusiasm for something; it’s a non-sick fever.

Equivocal: being wishy washy in your speech or decision making; not taking a stand

“When asked a difficult question during the debate, the young politician equivocated.

Mnemonic: Think of e-“quiver”-cal. When you’re in the act of equivocating, you might quiver physically because you know you’re not being forthright.

Placate: to make someone less angry

“The exasperated young mother placated her screaming child by playing a game.”

Mnemonic: The word starts with the sound of “play.” If someone is angry and you just start playing with them, that can cause them to be less angry, thus placating them.

Dr. Mom’s words

Undaunted: when a person doesn’t weaken in determination to do something

“Ernest Shackleton is just one example of an explorer who was undaunted by the hardships associated with polar expeditions.”

Mnemonic: Replace the root word “daunt” with “don’t.” Don’t indicates to stop doing something, but a person who is undaunted disregards that. The person is “un-don’t-ed.”

Mettle: strength of conviction; often used with “test your…”

“Being an agreeable person by nature, Mom knew that resolving to openly share her opinion would likely test her mettle.”

Mnemonic: We more often think of the homonym of this word, metal. Metal is a hard, solid surface or object, like a metal bar. To bend the metal bar would be difficult. It would take a lot of strength. So when your mettle is tested, you need to be strong, too, though in a different way.

Spunk: having nerve; being spirited

“It’s hard not to admire the spunk of that kid who ran the obstacle course repeatedly to lower his time.”

Mnemonic: Spunk rhymes with skunk, a creature that will squirt its stinkiness on anyone without hesitation. That takes a lot of nerve. It takes spunk. Interesting, you can also imagine that a skunk causes spunk in everyone around it. Just seeing one animates people to get moving.

Chutzpa(h): pushiness, discourteousness; akin to spunk but with a negative connotation

“It took a lot of chutzpa for the journalist to mention the politician’s recent weight gain.”

Mnemonic: Imagine the word pronounced as, “Whoops, Pa!” Maybe you overstepped your bounds with your parent or did something inappropriate.

Pluck: resolution, boldness

“The plucky gymnast smilingly jumped right back up on the balance beam after slipping off during a twirl move.”

Mnemonic: To pluck a large flower from the ground by its roots, you need to pull boldly and with determination. This evidences pluck.

BIG Sentence:

“The unequivocal and occasionally even audacious judges of the best garden competition sometimes demonstrated fervid chutzpa, going well beyond pluck, spunk, and mettle, and quite clearly giving no thought to placating the nonetheless undaunted contestants whose plants did quite frankly sometimes appear desiccated.”